Paradise Rebuilt
by Icy Earth
Summary: The calm they have is sent from Eden, a paradise rebuilt.


'Babe, there's something tragic about you

Something so magic about you

Don't you agree?'

Grizz and Sam spin across the kitchen floor, Sam stepping on Grizz's feet every two steps like clockwork. Sam can't hear the music, but it's turned up high enough that he can feel the vibrations through the floorboards. Grizz had signed him all the lyrics the first time they listened to it, one of Grizz's favorites from before the smell. From Eden was also the only song he'd had downloaded on his phone.

Grizz is smiling against Sam's shoulder, planting kisses there every few beats. The beat after Sam steps on his right foot, the beat before Sam steps on his left. The song fades out, and Grizz giggles a little bit, moving his head back so Sam can see.

"What?" Sam signs, smiling back at him.

"We're a tragedy waiting to happen and the tragedy's already come," Grizz responds, signing as he speaks.

'Babe, there's something lonesome about you

Something so wholesome about you

Get closer to me'

Becca's soft smile is blinding sunlight, filling their sitting room as she moves through it. Eden is balanced on her right hip, babbling along with the lyrics. Her hands move in nonsense signs, as Grizz's move in the real ones. Becca pounds on the wall between the sitting room and the porch, opening the screen door when Sam doesn't come in right away.

Sam's sitting outside on the porch railing, reading while he swings his feet. Becca leans out of the house and taps him on the shoulder, making him start up from his book, and gestures him inside. He sticks his bookmark in his book and swings around, jumping off the porch railing in a single motion that has him gently crashing into Becca and Eden. Eden makes grabby hands at him, and he takes her off of Becca.

He twirls with her to the last few beats of the song, knowing the vibrations well enough by now to know where in the song they are. Eden is a laughing mess by the end of it, and Sam is laughing too. Grizz grins at them from his perch on the couch, rising to kiss Sam on the cheek as he passes.

'No tight side, no rolling eyes, no irony

No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me'

Grizz wakes with a jolt to the sound of Becca crying and From Eden playing quietly across the house. At first he thinks it's Eden crying, but she's been sleeping through the night recently. The only thing that gives Becca away is when half formed words start to drift through the wall. Grizz can't make anything clear out, but more than one syllable is too much for Eden at this age.

Grizz slips out of bed with as little jostling as possible, trying hard not to wake Sam. Sam stirs a little bit, but he's more then used to Grizz's melodramatic wandering at two am, being a poet and all.

Grizz makes his way up the hall to Becca's room, slipping his head into Eden's on the way. Sleeping soundly despite it all. When Grizz gets to Becca's room, he knocks lightly on thin wood. The ugly, wracking sobs stop almost instantly, replaced with the unmistakable hiccups of someone who's trying to hide that they're crying. From Eden cuts off abruptly.

"Can I come in?" Grizz whispers against the door. Becca waits a minute before answering, her voice false steady.

"What do you need?" She sounds like she'd been crying for hours before she woke Grizz up.

"What do _you _need?" Grizz fires back at her. The door is cracking open at a painstakingly slow speed.

"A shoulder, I think," Becca whispers.

"I've been told I have very nice ones,"

That gets a laugh, at least.

'Honey you're familiar like my mirror years ago

Idealism sits prison, chivalry fell on it's sword

Innocence died screaming, honey ask me I should know

I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door'

Eden is having one of her world class meltdowns. Becca is inside the church bathroom, trying to calm her down before the town meeting, and it isn't working. At all. She's tried everything from reading to her to tickling her, but all Eden wants to do is scream.

And scream.

And scream.

Becca, as a last ditch effort, starts humming. Eden was never loved music, with the exclusion of little kid's songs like wheels on the bus and whatnot. Becca doesn't even know what she's humming until Eden's already asleep on her shoulder. It's From Eden, the song Grizz loves. If it gets Eden to shut up, then Becca guesses she loves it too. She'll have to thank Grizz tonight on the way home after the town meeting.

'Babe, there's something wretched about this

Something so precious about this

Oh what a sin'

Grizz wakes up to Sam running his fingers through his hair. Light is streaming through the open curtains, painting Sam's face with an ethereal glow. The way it hits his hair almost makes him look like he has a halo, and his sleep filled eyes certainly look angelic. Sam smiles a dopey little grin at Grizz, and Grizz grins back.

The fields are empty for the winter, which means they can sleep in. Eden and Becca are staying at Kelly's for a girls night, which means even more sleeping in. And it's Sunday, when the library is closed. It's a triple whammy of sleeping in.

Grizz signs so at Sam, who smuthers Grizz's hands with his own while whispering

"So sleep in, Bear,"

"Okay," Grizz mouths back, hands still held by Sam's. He tucks his head back into Sam's shoulder.

Sam is snoring in seconds, and Grizz hums From Eden to himself until he's fallen asleep beside him.

'To the strand a picnic plan for you and me

A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree'

Sam walks to the impromptu witness stand, stiff in his uncomfortable suit. Elle passes him on the way back to her seat, and she squeezes his hand. It gives him the courage to actually sit down and start signing. Grizz is mouthing From Eden lyrics at Sam from his seat, and the familiarity grounds Sam in his stories. Becca is right beside him, and he knows she translating, but it feels better to imagine she's just up there as his best friend, supporting him. When he finishes, the entire room is still for a brief but glorious second. Campbell stands from his seat, and before Luke can pull him down, he's flipping Grizz off from a side angel and rushing Sam.

Luke gets to Campbell after less then three steps and slams him back into his chair. Sam doesn't know what Campbell says next, his lips are too far away to read and Becca's in too much shock to translate, but he knows it's bad. Bad enough that when the jury is asked long they'd like to deliberate, they say they have a verdict now. Bad enough that the verdict is guilty.

Bad enough that the sentence is death.

'Honey you're familiar like my mirror years ago

Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on it's sword

Innocents died screaming, honey ask me I should know

I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door'

Eden has just come home absolutely plastered, and is currently crying her eyes out to Sam at the kitchen table. Someone, who she said sounded like Uncle Jason when he's drunk, had just threatened to kill her.

Sam curses himself mentally. Of course, her first response to fear had been to find the nearest sense inhibitor and take it until she wasn't scared anymore. They hadn't taught her any other options, and she had been spending a little too much time with Harry recently.

"I'm scared, dad," She signs. "And I'm sorry,"

"You don't need to be scared or sorry. Come to me before the drunk part next time, okay?" Sam signs back.

After Sam gets Eden in bed, he finds Grizz in the yard and tells him to keep an eye on her.

Jason is about to get his ass beat.

'Honey you're familiar like my mirror years ago

Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on it's sword

Innocence died screaming, honey ask me I should know

I slithered here from Eden just to hide outside your door'

Becca gathers Eden up in her arms, planting a kiss on each of her cheeks as soon as she's through the front door. Becca's son-in-law is next, and then she gingerly takes the new baby out of Eden's arms.

"Grizzly, get your ass down here or I'll-"

"Mum!" Eden is playfully stern, "Don't swear in front of the baby,"

"She's a baby! She doesn't know. Besides, you could swear in three different languages before you were four. She should get one,"

Sam makes it into the front hall before Grizz does, despite having to use a cane. He leans the cane against the wall and creaks forwards, hugging Eden and her husband at the same time, and signing hello to his grandson.

Grizz makes it after a small but awkward eternity and says hello in much the same way. The kettle interrupts the front hall gathering with it's screaming, and Grizz signs,

"Camomile?"

"Yes please, dad," Eden responds, and Becca smiles at her while Sam fusses around the baby. Grizz moves into the kitchen clanging around while Becca tries to herd everyone further into the house. It works, and within three minutes they're all settled with tea in the sitting room, catching up.

The calm they have is sent from Eden, a paradise rebuilt.


End file.
